‘Disgusting’: Big-name conservative rips Trump’s ‘dorkiest’ bullying attempt
A prominent conservative analyst ripped President Donald Trump's administration on Monday for its "dorkiest" attempt to bully one of its political foes.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Department of Defense was reducing Sen. Mark Kelly's (D-AZ) retirement pay as punishment for participating in a video with five other Democrats in which they told military personnel to be suspicious of orders from the Trump administration. Trump described Kelly's comments as "seditious" in a Truth Social post.
Bill Kristol, the editor at large for The Bulwark, discussed the administration's move on a new episode of "The Bulwark Podcast" on Monday.
"Just how disgusting it is what they're doing," Kristol said. "Mark Kelly is a United States Senator serving with distinction, and he happened to make a correct argument that you don't have to obey unlawful orders, and you should be wary of some of the orders coming from this administration."
Kristol also warned that there could be unintended consequences of the move against Kelly.
"It's dorky, and it's stupid, and Mark Kelly doesn't care," Kristol said. "There are a lot of retired military and ... not all of them are famous like Mark Kelly, and some of them are living off their retirement and whatever, and don't want to be publicly humiliated and knocked down a rank."
"I worry always about the intimidation effects of these things even when they're done in the dorkiest bullying way," he continued.
Trump’s golf obsession could smash Obama’s 8-year tally in just one term
President Donald Trump hit the greens again this week on the taxpayers' dime as a new report found he visited his golf clubs a staggering 88 times in 2025, more than a quarter of the days he's spent in the White House.
Trump, an avid golfer, didn't waste a second ringing in 2026 before swinging his clubs at Trump International Golf Club Palm Beach, according to a photo posted Thursday by his videographer, Michael Solakiewicz. The photo was flagged Friday in a Daily Beast article that found the president hit the links 88 times.
"It’s also a day more than Trump spent playing golf in 2017, the first year of his first term, and the most in any year he’s otherwise sat in the Oval Office," the report said.
Trump's 2025 golf outings cost taxpayers a cool $110.6 million, according to the Trump Golf Tracker, which monitors presidential motorcade sightings at his clubs. December and New Year's Day tacked on another $14 million to that tab.
If Trump continues on his pace, he’ll likely top former President Barack Obama's eight-year total of 333 rounds of golf in just his second term alone, the report said.
The White House pushed back, arguing that Trump is "working 24/7 to Make America Great Again and make the world a safer place."
"Nobody works harder than President Trump who has delivered a record number of historic achievements in only a year," a spokesperson for the White House told the Beast.
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson holds the all-time record for visits to the greens. From 1913 to 1919, Wilson played nearly 1,200 rounds of golf, according to The Washington Post.
